John Wines Thinks He Won $500,000 But Lottery Ticket Turns Out To Be A Misprint

John Wines was sure that he had a winning scratch-off lottery ticket, only to find out that it was a misprint. The New Mexico Lottery notified him that he will not receive any of the $500,000 that he thought he was due.

Wines bought the ticket in Roswell and had multiple winning numbers appear on his ticket. His winning number was ‘1,’ but the numbers that he saw were actually the first digits of two-digit numbers that were missing the second half.

He took it back to the gas station to receive his winnings, but as Wines recounted: “I took it back in and she told me, ‘That is not a winner.’ They told me that it was a misprint and they don’t pay off for misprints.” While the numerical part of it was misprinted, the written numbers were not, as the photo of the ticket shows.

Further proving that it was indeed a typo, the ticket that he bought only had winnings of up to $250,000. Wines is not satisfied with the result and has complained to the New Mexico Lottery. He received an email saying, “We did find a flaw in that particular pack of tickets and it’s been reported to our printer. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I did complete a reconstruction of your ticket and it was not a winner.”

To make up for the mistake, the New Mexico Lottery offered Wines $100 in free lottery tickets. He said, “It’s like I told them, I didn’t misprint it. I bought the ticket in good faith thinking if I won I was going to get my money. And they told me no, they absolutely, positively told me no.”